Monday, December 05, 2005

On my turntable: Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas Sdtk

A Charlie Brown Christmas is without a doubt one of my top 5 favorite Christmas LPs (do I smell an official "Jeff's Christmas Top 5" list brewing?). I'm sure I speak for many, especially those of us born 1960 or later, when I say that this music is synonymous with Christmas. From the very first notes of "O Tannenbaum" I get all Christmasey. The LP version I have is the 1988 re-master, which sounds stunning. Of all music styles, I tend to think that jazz sounds its best on the vinyl format. This LP has become somewhat common in record shops over the past few years, so if you see it I suggest you nab it.

When I was working in music retail, this was one album that I could listen to over and over, as opposed to fucking Mannheim Steamroller or any of that new age shit. Seriously, there is so much insanely bad Christmas music that gets released each year (record companies know it's a huge market), but there's only a few classics like Charlie Brown that have defied time so well.